Contents

Background

In 1475 the Ottoman's attempt to bring Moldavia under their control, at winter by
using an army of Rumelian local levies, ended disastrously with a
defeat in the Battle of Vaslui. During the proper
military campaign season, the Ottomans assembled a large army under
the command of the Sultan, Mehmed II and entered Moldavia in June
1476. Meanwhile groups of Tartars from the Crimean Khanate (the Ottomans' recent
ally) were sent to attack Moldavia. Romanian sources may state that
they were repelled,[1].
Other sources state that joint Ottoman and Crimean Tartar forces
"occupied Bessarabia and took Akkerman, gaining control of southern
mouth of Danube. Stephan tried to avoid open battle with the
Ottomans by following a scorched-earth policy."[2] In
the process the Moldavians forces ended up being dispersed
throughout the country, leaving only a small force of about
12-20.000 men, led by Ştefan cel Mare himself, to face the main
Ottoman attack.

The
battle

The battle began with the Moldavians luring the main Ottoman
forces into a forest that was set on fire, causing some casualties
to the attacking Ottoman army in the forest. According to another
battle description, the defending Moldavian forces repelled several
Ottoman attacks with steady fire from hand-guns.[3] The
attacking Turkish Janissaries were forced to crouch on their
stomachs instead of charging headlong into the defenders positions.
Seeing the imminent defeat of his forces, Mehmed charged with his
personal guard against the Moldavians, managing to rally the
Janissaries, and turning the tide of the battle. Turkish
janissaries penetrated inside the forest and engaged the defenders
in man-to-man fighting.

The Moldavian army was utterly defeated (casualties were very
high on both sides, and the chronicles say that the entire battlefield
was covered with the bones of the dead, a probable source for the
toponym
(Valea Albă is Romanian and AkdereTurkish for
"The White Valley").

Aftermath

Ştefan cel Mare retreated into the north-western part of
Moldavia or even into the Polish Kingdom[4] and
began forming another army. The Ottomans were unable to conquer any
of the major Moldavian strongholds (Suceava, Neamţ, Hotin)[1] and
were constantly harassed by small scale Moldavians attacks. Soon
they were also confronted with starvation, a situation made worse
by an outbreak of the plague.

Meanwhile anti-Ottoman forces were being assembled in Transylvania[5] under
Stephen
V Báthory's command, assisted by Ştefan's presumed cousin Vlad III Dracula; confronted with this army
and with Ştefan's counterattack the Ottomans retreated from
Moldavia in August 1476.

According the other sources, "Stephan... lost his former
prestige and ability to threaten the Ottomans"[2]

In
fiction

In the Romanian theatrical play Apus de Soare by Barbu Ştefănescu
Delavrancea (set in the final year of Ştefan's reign), one can
find a description of the battle in the form of a dialog between
the daughters and widows of the boyars who had fallen in the
battle, in which they describe how their respective fathers and
husbands had to drag Ştefan out of the battle, as he desperately
tried to keep fighting.